We got an email from Apple last Friday saying that our game Tipix is experiencing unexpected delays and that they have no further information to provide at this time. We followed-up with them but they said the same thing in response. Just wondering if this is something universal that all developers are experiencing right now (maybe because of WWDC) or did we just catch some bad luck? Thanks!
I suppose so... but Apple seemed to go out of their way to let me know about a delay when it was only in review for 6 days. From my experience, Apple tends to not say anything until you ask.
We've had issues. ... at HeyBuddy - Our PAID version of our APpp got through in 1-2 weeks.. and the FREE version is still being scrutinized. Not sure if they are delayed or what... but liar's free has been in the aproval process since April 30th. Ouch
Think of it like a bag check at the airport. Your app, for whatever reason, is going through an additional review. For us, our delay was only 5 days. They wanted to check that we had legal rights to display the ColorTilt artwork in our screenshots. At least that's what we thought the delay was about - we never found out for sure.
BTW 2 Mouse House Updates and Mouse House Lite release Were all approved in 7-8 days each over the last 3 weeks.
Just wanted to add some input, "Mummy's Revenge" was submitted on 5/22, still in review and I was not expecting it to be out of review till about 5/31 or even 6/1. I do have a question, if you were to make a minor change in the app description does that restart your place in line? I made the change on 5/23 and I am wondering whether I lost a day.
Underworlds 1.11 rejected after a long wait because we have an option to turn off vibration which the Touch doesnt have. Off course on the Touch it does nothing and that feature has been in for a month now in the previous version. /sigh
Yes, that's a common rejection that we got as well. I guess you slipped it by an earlier reviewer. We check device type now and remove any mention of vibration on a touch. Also, your app description needs to be clear that the vibration feature is only supported on the iPhone.
The more popular your app gets, the harder it is to get approved. For reference, we had to send in four updates for Touchgrind at one time, it delayed the update about six weeks (and got tons of emails from unsatisfied customers during the time). The problem? We weren't clear enough about that the online highscores would require an internet connection.
I got the same email about 3 weeks ago for 30 and Dirty Lite. 2 weeks later I get a call from an Apple employee and he asks me nicely to remove the picture of a fat guy ripping of his shirt in my App Store description. I removed the picture, and re-submitted the binary and a week later the game is approved.
Our updates for iBrawl were submitted 5/17 and 5/18 and both went through 5/28 within 20 mins of each other. That was after receiving the "Please change description to remove $1.99 Sale Price" text that other's are getting. I have to believe that as more and more updates are flooding in for the 40,000 apps out there now, delays are going to get worse and worse. Seems like AFD alone has a new update every week with no text other than "Bug Fixes." Wonder if they'll crack down on the number of updates allowed per month here shortly to help curb that.
I would love to know how many reviewers there are and how many apps they review each day. I think we should have a guessing contest and see who can get the closest. I have no clue at the moment. I imagine someone has a count of app updates per day. Is this something like 250? So maybe 25 reviewers each reviewing 10 apps per day??
Check out www.148apps.biz, this website has some interesting metrics on the app store including a graph of weekly app submission numbers. This seems to shows about 1500 submissions per week which makes your guess pretty good! Unfortunately I don't think we'll ever know how many reviewers they have. Also of interest is this graph which appears to show a decline in the number of apps, are they starting to remove apps from the store? Any thoughts?
Right you are, well isn't that odd! I guess my little developer heart jumped at the thought they might be doing some app store pruning
